Awning with drop arm - orange stripey

Fiddlestix - white, end fix with lettering

white end fixed, green/white fabric

white frame, red/cream stripey

Mrs Hodgeson, our toughest installation ever!

Through another of my contacts, Radiant Blinds, we were handed a job that had left them scratching their heads. How on earth could you install an awning on a 4th floor balcony in to a recess that was lead clad and with no visible way of fixing at all? That was the brief, and the solution came from my father, Eric, who not only has 50+ years experience of this industry but who also has the brain of an engineer and the hands of a master craftsman.

One carefully thought out meeting with the client, and an hour of even more carefully planned measuring and he came up with a side fixed bracket. The science behind it was that the forces exacted on the building by the awning would not pose any burden if the fixings were at a right angle to the force. Sparing you the boredom of going in to it any further, it worked!! The result was, and still is, a beautiful awning that does it's job to a tee.

The installation day was a challenge though, hoisting a 70kg awning up 40' between 4 of us was far more difficult than it sounds (as anyone who has ever hoisted anything by hand will testify). Adding the value of the item to it's weight seems to make it feel even heavier!!! Once you're 20' off the ground there's no turning back though and you just have to grin and bear it.

Thanks goes to Mrs Hodgeson who is, and always will be, a really charming and caring person.

Brown frame, beige fabric - with lights

Limpsfield Tennis Club

There's nothing more satisfying than finding a solution that's bamboozled many before you. Having said that, I'm not a genius and I'm sure I've walked away scratching my head, only to find the next guy has all the answers. LTC wasn't such an occasion.

The brief was simple, 'find us a solution to our smoking shelter problem please'. Straight off I was amused that someone, anyone in fact, would play an aerobic sport and then sit and smoke afterwards but, as an ex-smoker myself, who am I to judge. I'm just the awning guy, aren't I? The problem that my predecessors had encountered was that there was only 3 fixing points spanning a 7m area and the middle point had a drainpipe running down it meaning there was no possibility of hanging a bracket there. The building was a solid steel frame and the solution was to remove the drainpipe and install a hollow steel bracket on to the building before putting the drainpipe back - through the middle of the bracket. Et voila! a beautiful 7m long smoking shelter. Now I just need to live with the guilt attached to helping smokers partake in their dangerous pastime...